Note From David.I love success soccer stories and am fortunate to hear quite a few. I like sharing them because they are motivating and inspirational to soccer coaches. Below is a great one from a U8 soccer coach who beat the "top" team in the league 7-1. The team he beat was undefeated and had beaten his team 3-0 the prior season.

Below is part of correspondence from the Premium Forum. It has been edited for this article.

To the Premium Forum,

Just wanted to write in and give an update on my teams situation. First let me start by discussing some changes I made based upon SoccerHelp.

I have begun using soccer patches to motivate my players. They love it! They were so excited when I announced it they could hardly wait to practice or play a game. I give practice patches as an incentive and I had girls making practices that rarely made the two practices per week. I also issue defensive patches, blood patches, assist patches, victory patches and the special lighting bolt hustle patch. We put these patches on the girls' team t-shirts that have the team name on the front with their number underneath. The patches look great and the kids love them.

I began using the team goal scoring celebration in addition to our normal pre-game chant. This has worked fantastic and each girl gets so excited when the team scores a goal! They all run to the middle, circle up with their arms around each others shoulders and chant 1-2-3 GOAL! It is so funny to watch my little goalie run all the way up and all the way back...so excited about a goal.

Now, the reason for my post. Last December I was stressing over formations and the inability to score goals. I cannot stress how important it is to know your team. All the soccer formation talk in the world means nothing if it does not work for your team. I think it is important for people get to know their team and each player�s abilities.

I started with a 2-2-1 soccer formation way back when. That didn't last long because I did not like how flat my defense was. The two defender would get confused who would be the first defender and who would be the second defender. There was too much thinking going on. They are only 6 and 7 years old and it was too much at that time and there is really no passing in the league to speak of yet.

For that reason I moved to a 1-1-2-2 soccer formation. This was before my last post in December. This defensive scheme worked much better with the defenders shifting fields as the ball moved around. They also knew exactly what to do. The problem for me however was that we could not score. We had recently lost to the first place team in the league 3-0. It was the last game of the Fall season and it was only our second loss.

In this formation I had my sweeper playing deep and she was usually a slow but aggressive player. My fullback was one of my better players and she would push up almost to midfield. I placed my two best players at midfield to help on defense and offense and hid my weaker players at the forward position. The problem with this was that my weaker players couldn't score and my midfielders ran themselves to death.

I have now moved to a 1-2-3 soccer formation and sometimes use the 3rd forward as a "killer bee" defender who shadows the other teams best player. I have moved my best player to offense and split my weaker players to one forward and one midfielder. I have found that my very good midfielder can control the entire middle of the field and my weaker midfielder just compliments her. With my strongest player at forward she only runs in half the field so she does not run herself to death. The result is more goals for her and now my weak forwards have begun scoring goals because I taught them to crash the goal and pick up the loose ends. My weakest player on the team both physically and in effort is now scoring almost every game and LOVES IT!

Now for the icing....last Monday night we played the "top" team in the league from last season (who were undefeated again this season) and beat them 7-1. It was heaven to say the least.

Thanks for all the help guys.

Coach C, U8, Premium Member

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Hi Coach C,

What a great story! Thanks for writing. You have made my day.

I remember the feeling of how great it is to see a team improve.

You have come a long way and have obviously become an excellent coach. I'm glad SoccerHelp helped you.

You are correct about using the formation and Style of Play that works best for your team given your players abilities, speed and level of bravery. The length of the field also matters and the competition might matter some.

To beat the "top" team in the league from last season (who were undefeated again this season) 7-1 is amazing... really, that NEVER happens!!! I'll bet the parents on that team and the other coaches in your league were stunned. That should give your team a lot of confidence.

By the way... it sounds like YOUR team is the "top" team now.

Two suggestions: Have you taught Coaching Rule No. 3? If not, teach it - it is worth 2 goals per game at U8.

Also, read about the Short Corner Set Play and watch the video on youtube.

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